The present invention pertains generally to ski equipment, and more specifically to an adjustable connection between the bindings and the ski, whereby various modes of adjustability are provided between them, including translational and rotational movement.
Ideally, ski equipment should allow the skier to be in a balanced position over skis which ride flat on the surface of the snow under all conditions. Because of variations in anatomical configuration among various individuals, this ideal is seldom achieved, using standard boots, bindings and skis. For example, it is now generally accepted that a bow-legged skier achieves better performance by "canting" or placement of wedges under the bindings, which serve to raise the inside edge of each boot an equal amount along the entire length of the boot to compensate for the inclination of the foot sole caused by bow-leggedness.
Another anatomical variation of equal importance, for which there has been, up to now, no feasible method of correction, is the angular displacement of the foot with respect to the plane of the bent leg. That is to say, with many skiers there is a certain amount of toe-in or toe-out angularity, which would result in non-parallel skis if not compensated for. To correct this condition, the skier tends to force the plane of his bent leg to one side or the other of a plane defined by the longitudinal axis of the ski and the skier's center of gravity. However, when the knee is not directly over the axis of the ski, any forward bending at the ankle produces "edging" of the ski, which means that one edge of the ski digs into the snow. Authorities maintain that even a minor degree of edging will make a marked difference in the performance of a skier, particularly in racing. Warren Witherell, director of Burke Mountain Alpine Training Center in East Burke, Vermont, says in his book "How The Racers Ski": "a simple change of 1 degree in wedge need (required by boot break-in) has put these racers back in the winner's circle. That 1-degree difference, particularly if the skier is too much on his inside edges, can be worth more than two or three seconds per race." While Witherell was referring particularly to the use of wedges, the problem is exactly the same, whether produced by simple wedge needs or the toe-in, toe-out problem. For example, with a 10-degree toe-in or toe-out error, it can be shown by trigonometric calculation that an edging error of 3.4 degrees is produced by plus-or-minus 10 degrees flex at the ankle, and for 15 degrees toe-in or toe-out error, the corresponding edging variation is 5.1 degrees.
It is well-known among skiers that longitudinal placement of the bindings on the skis is extremely important for maximum performance. This can vary with the snow conditions, steepness of the terrain, type of skiing (i.e., downhill or slalom racing), and other factors. Thus, it may be desirable to shift the bindings further forward or aft of a given position for a special situation, but this is normally not feasible because it would involve drilling additional holes in the ski, which tends to be damaging to the skis.
Still another condition that may seriously affect a skier's performance is where one leg is shorter than the other. In this case, accommodation requires that the boot sole of the shorter leg be raised slightly higher above the ski than the boot sole of the longer leg.
Heretofore, efforts to provide different adjustments of the bindings with respect to the skis, both angular and translational, have required that the bindings be disassembled from the ski and then reassembled, usually necessitating the drilling of new holes in the ski, which is objectionable because it weakens the ski at a critical point and provides openings through which moisture can get into the interior of the ski. Moreover, many of the screws used to secure bindings to the skis are locked and sealed in place with epoxy cement, making them extremely difficult to remove. This type of adjustment has a number of serious disadvantages. For one thing, the problem of disassembling and reassembling the bindings precludes any possibility of making the adjustments on the ski slope if the skier should find that more or less angular or translational adjustment is required to correct for his particular anatomical condition. Another disadvantage is that some prior arrangements to provide for angular or rotational adjustments require that new holes be drilled in the ski for each adjustment, which means that if the initial adjustment is not completely satisfactory, a new set of holes will have to be drilled in the ski. Another shortcoming of prior efforts has been that only one, or at the most two, adjustments can be made, whereas it is frequently necessary that as many as 4 or 5 adjustments may be required to compensate for a particular anatomical configuration.